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Do you mean to say that the 4.4mm cable performance on balanced is nearly the same as the stock ALO's on 3.5mm unbalanced?
Would switching to a balanced connection with the cable be an upgrade over the ALO's on 3.5mm unbalanced?
Well, there are two things. iBasso hybrid cable uses a similar wire material as ALO ref8, so you get the same benefit of lower cable impedance (when compared to Epic - more conductors, lower impedance). Change in impedance plays an important role in sound tuning, especially with low impedance multi-BA monitors like W80, and the wire material also refines the sound to a degree (but I'm not opening that can of worms discussion ). So, in terms of wiring they are similar, while ibasso cable has other ergonomics benefits as I mentioned above. Now, regarding balanced vs unbalanced. It really has nothing to do with a cable termination, but with your source and how you are driving your IEMs. I have tested multiple dozens of DAPs in the last 4 years. There are some designed to have balanced output to perform identical to single ended, some with balanced which sounds even worse than single ended, and others where balanced has a noticeable improvement. So it will depend on your source. Typically, if you have a cable terminated with 2.5mm balanced plug, you can use 3.5mm and 4.mm adaptors and then future-proof your cable for any source.